2012 World Cup – France & Spain

World Cup Finals and Junior World Championships – Espot, Spain

Sunday – Sprint Classic
March 18, Roy McKinstry – Today’s WC Final  and World Junior Championship Sprint race has concluded. Cory had two solid runs and finished 10th overall and 6th in the juniors. Madi had a solid 1st run and a fast second run finishing 10th overall and 4th in the juniors. Tanner Visnick in his first World Cup in Europe, placed 31st overall and 15th in the juniors.  Zoe Taylor did not race today due to an ankle injury sustained in yesterday’s Parallel Sprint.

Todays podium for the men: Phillipe Lau, Tobias Mueller and Joergen Hoelst.
Women: Sigrid Rykhus, Amelie Reymond, Johanna Holzman.
Junior podiums for the men: Tobias Mueller, Olle Collberg, Sondre Christianson.
Junior Women: Johanna Holzman, Thea Lunde, Argelline.

World Cup Overall 2012. Women: Amelie Reymond, Sigrid Rykhus, Anne Marit Engar   Men: Phillipe Lau, Tobias Mueller, Bastian Dyer

From Cory’s Blog: Today’s results don’t scream awesome, but it was really really good, solid skiing for me, minimal mistakes and some top split times, make me a really happy skier, plus 10th in the final world cup of the season isn’t too shabby either! 13th overall for the season, 12th in the classic, 13th in the sprint, and 17th ish in the parallel with only two starts makes me a very happy man, big improvements in all of my skiing this year! Way better in the gates first…making jump lines, and landings…as well as much better skating and endurance we all huge factors in the season. My off season training with Angela Figallo was pretty clutch in making that possible…ANGELA YOUR A BOSS!! I can’t wait to get back at it!  From españa this is C. Snyder checking out!

Saturday – Parallel Sprint

World Juniors Men= Toby Meuller, Johannes Schmid, Nicoli
World Juniors Women= Johanna Holzman, Thea Lunde, and Jasmine Taylor. Zoe 4th.

WC Finals Men: Phillipe Lau, Toby Meuller, Antoine Bouvier
WC Finals Woman: Sigrid Rykhus, Amelie Reymond, Thea Lunde.

Todays Parallel sprint was actioned packed. The morning started off with the World Jr Championship Parallel sprint. Zoe, Madi, and Cory all qualified. In the first round Cory and Madi were knocked out. Madi was knocked out by the eventual winner Johanna Holzman from Germany. Zoe was paired with Theresa from Germany who crashed off the jump and almost took Zoe out as she slid into Zoe’s course. Zoe advanced to the small final where she lost to the evntual third place winner Jasmin Taylor.
Toby made the max of 14 runs as he was the only competitor to make the finals in both events. The mens final and womans final was decided by hundreths of a second. It was a long day with the race starting at 9 and concluding at 3.

Zoe’s Report – Parallel Sprint Classic
We had a good day of parallels in Espot today. Both Madi and I qualified for the Juniors and Cory qualified for both the Juniors and overall. First run Madi and I were paired against the German girls (Madi vs. Johanna, Me vs. Theresa). Though close through the gates, Johanna advanced to the next round. Theresa fell off the jump so I moved on to face Johanna. She beat me and I raced Jasmine (UK) For the little finals. Unfortunately, sometime during the day (Either off a jump sometime or when avoiding hitting Theresa) I sprained my ankle. I was not able to skate as hard as possible and Jasmine took 3rd place. Cory, paired against Jonas in the Juniors (Germany, came in second) and Chris Lau in the Overall (France) fought hard but both of the others moved on. It was an exciting day of great racing and hard battles.

 

Madi McKinstry claims 3rd Place in Junior World Championships Classic Race
Friday, March 16 – Roy McKinstry – Today’s World Cup Final and World Junior Championship Classic was held on the steep piste of Espot, Spain. The course was very challenging. For the men Chris Lau was the winner followed by his brother Phillipe and Tobias Mueller. The womens field was won by Amelie Reymond followed by Anna Marit Engar and Sigrid Rykhus. For the Juniors  Johanna Holzman 1st, Argeline 2nd Madi 3rd, Zoe 6th. Madi 8th overall and Zoe 11th overall. For the men Tobias Muller 1st, Sondre 2nd Thomas 3rd. Cory 4th and Cory was 10th overall. Tanner Visnick was 15th in the juniors and 33rd overall.

There was a one run sprint after the classic for parallel dual qualification. Cory qualified 6th for the for the jr dual and 13th for the overall dual. Tanner failed to qualify for either. Madi qualified 6th and Zoe 7th for the Jr dual but neither qualified for the final dual. The Jr dual will be run for the top 8 juniors both men and woman. The final dual will be the top 8 woman and 16 men.

The jury is still trying to decide whether to run the parallel on Sat or Sun.

Recap of French WC races
Tuesday, March 13 – Cory Snyder – We have been in and out of good internet and the last three days have been crazy, but we are all happy, mostly, after the three races here in France. We have had unreal weather here, warm and sunny everyday, but the racing has not been quite so good. Madi and I both struggled a bit in the classic, 13th, and 16th respectively. Mediocre skiing, and good skating, on a perfect course. Sad day though as Shane, our north of the border friend, went down with a reoccurring ankle injury. Hopefully a speedy recovery for him. Last night was the night sprint here in Chamonix. Madi skied well, but had some trouble with the slippery snow conditions. I was really slow in the first run, 20th, but some good strategy and SUPER HIGH intensity in the second run bumped me up to 12th. Today we raced a sprint just across the mountains at Les Contamines, where Madi shredded her way to 7th on an absolutely banner day, I on the other hand, had some trouble finding speed and wound up in 17th…such is life! Tomorrow we travel to Spain to meet the rest of the US team!!

Video of race at Les Contamines: